Soft!

Rating:
Summary: Mind-bending journey.
Review: Alternating points of view, the author brings his main characters together in the most surprising fashion. What awaits the reader is the ultimate satisfaction - a literary mystery/thriller with a real sense of mystery and more than a few thrills. Funny. Always interesting. Get it while it's orange.

Rating:
Summary: If You Like Similes
Review: Despite the intriguing premise that it is possible to plant subliminal messages in the mind as a means of marketing a new product, I found "Soft" an irritating read. The plot was interesting, and yes, I did finish the book (because I always hate to admit I've wasted money) but as a long-time reader of all genre, I found the novel lacking in character development, believability, and suspense, as well as being technically flawed.

Only one of the three main characters, Barker, is really fleshed out. The other two are minimally structured, and therefore difficult to identify with, either pro or con. Consequently, the absurdly rapid deterioration of the victim, Glade, is non-believable.

But, the real problem with "Soft" is the author's overuse of the simile. As a writing tool, the simile is indispensable as a way of enlightening a reader. When one is unclear of a reader's recognition of a description or action, the simile provides a clarification. Thomson's first simile appears in the first paragraph where he describes a drop of rain landing on the bridge of Barker's nose and rolling into the corner of his eye "like a tear." Good, but we've just started. Near the end of the book, however, we read this: " . . . there was a movement in the corner of his eye, a slow, blind movement, like some great creature turning in his sleep." Yuk. In between these two examples there are dozens and dozens of similes, some admittedly excellent, some ridiculous, but either way there were just too many "like" and "as if" and "seemingly" additions that I found myself wishing I had started underlining them from the beginning so that I could determine just how many there were! This counting of annoying flaws only serves to diminish the enjoyment of a story. If you need endless clarification of a character's thoughts and actions, you will love this book, but I do not recommend it to anyone who appreciates an author's ability to convey his meaning without hammering it home with countless similes.

Rating:
Summary: Crisp, refreshing, ice-cold prose
Review: Rupert Thomson has once again proven to be an uncannily perceptive and masterful author. He writes with complete authority; his prose hooks you early on and draws you into a world that is at once familiar and strange. This novel is touching and satirical at the same time. My congratulations and thanks to Mr. Thomson for giving this reader something that stands apart from most of the drivel that passes for writing these days. Keep up the good work.

Rating:
Summary: why does an author have to have all the answers
Review: Soft is quite simply one of the best English novels of 1998. It is subtle. It is clever. And it could only have been written at the end of the century.

But it is not a conventional thriller. It is not a Tom Clancy style 'Character A is motivated by factors XYZ and will therefore by the end of the book have murdered Characters BC and D'.

It's much, much better than that. It's one of those rare books which reflect the complexities of life. It accepts that people's fates are interlinked but delves darkly into how the small choices we make can have ultimately disastrous consequences.

The opening section in particular is one of the finest psychological profiles you will ever read about how the less fortunate in our society are inevitably trapped by circumstances beyond their control. It debunks any idiotic myths that the 'proles' know no better and deserve what they get.

This is a fantastic study of human beings wanting to do well, yet failing. I'd certainly put Thomson up there as England's answer to Pynchon and De Lillo.

Rating:
Summary: Rupert loosens up and it's still pretty tense.
Review: This is a fine addition to the Rupert Thomson collection of novels. The interwoven tales of seemingly unconnected characters come together in an enevitable but intrigueing climax. This is a wonderful storyteller, and one book that should be read just on the merit of the writer. You will be amused and consider the dark humor of the novel a fine read.

Rating:
Summary: Quirky Satire About Advertising Industry
Review: This was'nt a great book,but very well-written (and it was like taking a trip to London without the jet-lag.) I won't describe the plot,all I can say that it was strange and at times surreal. A good off-beat thriller with a sense of humor.

Rating:
Summary: Good Weaving
Review: Thomson's excellent fifth divided into six parts. In the first we meet a tough, lonely bouncer who moves down to London to avoid a spot of bother. In part two we meet a young waitress who has an unsatisfactory long-distance relationship with an American. In the third we meet a young go-getter executive in the London office of a multinational soft-drink giant. Each of these characters are interesting and in the fourth and fifth parts we see them begin to interact, and begin to appreciate how they relate. The sixth part is an epilogue. The plot revolves around the launch of a new soft drink, and the lengths taken to promote it. In the end, things don't work out quite the way you expect, but it is a tale well told.

Rating:
Summary: Marketing, Passivity, Disaster
Review: Three unlikely characters interact in this social satire-- Glade, a passive girl with an American boyfriend; Barker, a bouncer who reads medieval history; and Jimmy, an eager young marketeer. A scheme to sell soda pop via subliminal viral marketing brings these three characters into contact and eventually conflict with evil American corporate men presiding like Mephisto over the whole debacle.

Thomson is an extremely good writer. Soft!, unfortunately, was missing something (particularly compared to his other novels-- Five Gates of Hell or The Insult) and I'm not really sure what it was. Glade may be a little too passive for us to care about, or perhaps it's that we get the feeling that he didn't care about the ending as much as he should, or maybe the satire isn't clear enough and we really can't take these characters straight. It's still better than most current novels and certainly not something I regret reading. I don't know-- I'll read it again in a month or two and see if I feel better about it.